Rob Crilly is Pakistan correspondent of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph. Before that he spent five years writing about Africa for The Times, The Irish Times, The Daily Mail, The Scotsman and The Christian Science Monitor from his base in Nairobi.

Pakistan's rulers are too afraid of Islamist extremists to pardon the 'blaspheming' Briton

They were granted audiences with President Omar al-Bashir to press their case. It worked. A man who seized power in an Islamist coup, who welcomed Osama bin Laden to his country, and whose forces were then engaged in a brutal repression in Darfur – a campaign that earned him arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court for genocide and crimes against humanity – saw sense and did the pragmatic thing. She was granted a presidential pardon and released.

Could that happen in the case of Mr Asghar? Almost certainly not.

Although it has a democratically elected government and benefits from hundreds of millions of pounds in British aid, such is the febrile atmosphere surrounding blasphemy that a sensible debate is impossible. Court cases are obscured by lawyers fearful of repeating contentious statements even in court and by journalists afraid of reporting them. Everyone knows there is almost always a property dispute or a personal slight at the centre of things, yet it is still a brave judge – and one not much longer for this earth – who finds a defendant not guilty.

Such is the fear of the extremists that they can claim victories on a daily basis without lifting a finger. Book launches are cancelled, newspaper stories toned down and debate stifled either by Islamist sympathisers or sensible people who have forgotten that we shouldn't bow down before terrorists.

Suggest reform of the draconian, Colonial-era laws and you will be accused of wanting to let the blasphemers run riot.

One of the people on Baroness Warsi's call list was the chief minister of Punjab. He will need no reminder of what happens to Pakistani politicians who get involved in cases like these. Three years ago the governor of Punjab – the president's representative in the province – was shot dead for taking up the cause of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy, a case revealed by The Telegraph.

His killer was showered with rose petals as he arrived in court and today remains in Adiala Jail, the same prison where Mr Asghar is detained in a fragile mental and physical state. Ironic? More like tragic.